God's holiness, justice and mercy are all displayed in the last two stories we have done together. I'm sorry I didn't post last week --I will try to recreate last week's session first, since it was a rather memorable one, then move on to our more recent study.
The Ark of God is Holy: Last week, our story was the sudden and dramatic death of Uzzah when he dares to touch the holy ark of God. This is the first sermon my husband ever preached, and I always remember him saying that this isn't one of those stories we usually teach in Sunday School. He said something like, "You don't usually hear children clamoring, 'Tell us the story of Uzzah, tell us the story of Uzzah.' " Well, he's right, but I kind of hope yours do after our lesson!
We opened by practicing finding our Psalm 1 verses, drawing slips of paper from three bags -- one with Book name, one with Chapter number and one with verse number. As all are in Psalm 1, so this makes our task substantially easier. The children did well -- we are trying to help prepare them for next year's Sword Drills when they move up to the older class.
In our room, we finished the game, then I passed out some bracelets with jingle bells on them. We sang Psalm 1:6 (to the tune of "Jingle Bells") while jingling the bells. Then we held the bells still and only jingled them on words beginning with "W." We had a new student, Stephen, and enjoyed him very much.
Following our usual routine, I told the Bible story about Uzzah -- and then we acted it out. SarahClaire acted as the ox pulling the cart (a chair), Stephen and I, walked alongside ringing bells and celebrating. The ox tripped and the ark (a cardboard box with four cutout paper plate rings, one on each corner) slipped. Patrick, as Uzzah, grabbed it, then dropped to the ground. Then we had the children all pretend to be the Levite priests and carry the ark correctly. (By slipping two cardboard wrapping paper rolls into the paper-plate rings and hoisting it up near their shoulders)
We talked about God's fearsome holiness and the need to follow the rules that He makes. We also talked about God's grace in making a way for His presence to be with us, through the Levite priests. They are a picture of our perfect priest and intermediary, Jesus.
We acted out the story several times, taking turns in the various parts. Then we played a musical chairs-type game to review of the Verse CD. I put pieces of different colored paper on three chairs in a row. Then I played the CD and had the children march around the row of chairs. When one verse song was complete, the children sat down on a chair near them. Then one child picked a card showing one of the colors. Whoever was sitting on that color was the leader in the next march around the chairs.
After this, we worked on our Attributes of God book -- God is holy. I asked them some questions about the story while we colored, and made sure they understood that while sin always has consequences, God does not usually strike people dead like this -- although He certainly is justifed to do so whenever He pleases. He decides what consequence is best, and He is always right. At the time, I thought: they just might remember this story...
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David Breaks God's Commandments and Repents: ... And, sure enough, this week Patrick was able to tell the other children the entire story of Uzzah! SarahClaire added details as he told it.
We opened with a variation on our Sword Drill prep game: This time I had taped a copy of Psalm 1 in my Bible over the page and used colors as clues in finding the verses -- each verse number was a different color. The verses themselves were written on different colored slips of paper, corresponding to the colors I had used for the verse numbers. I had the children choose one of these verse slips, then they had to find a crayon that matched that slip and use it to mark the verse in my Bible. They had no trouble with this game.
In our room, we blew up balloons. As we tried to keep the balloons in the air, we sang the verses that we had just marked in the Bible (Psalm 1). We would hit the balloon with fingers only, then switch fingers, etc., as we sang the verses.
We gathered on the rug for story time, and I showed the children the picture from the coloring book, of a man bowed very low. I told them that man was a king, a very important person. I told them that other people usually bowed to kings, but kings did not usually bow to anyone. This king was bowing to God, because he knew God was more important than him. Let's listen to the story of King David bowing to God.
Our story was an age-appropriate version of David's sin with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah, emphasizing that all men are sinful and fail to keep God's commandments. Their attention seemed to wander a bit in the first half of the story, but when I got to the part where Nathan visits King David and tells the story of the lamb, ending with "You are the man!" they were absolutely spellbound. I explained that David did not try to hide his sin when he was confronted with it. He immediately repented -- and in His grace, God forgave David and did not take his Kingdom or His love from him. David's sin still brought inevitable consequences from God, as sin always does, and David lost his baby and later had problems with his other sons. But God never withdrew His love and He forgave King David completely.
I finished by reading some lines from David's psalm of repentance, Psalm 52: Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness... For I acknowledge my transgression: and my sin is ever before me. Hide thy face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Wash me, and I shall be white as snow. ... A broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise."
The scene with Nathan raised a pressing tangential question in C.J.'s mind -- what if one is wrongfully accused of something? (David confessed because Nathan was right in his accusation -- but what if someone accuses you of something you didn't do?) We talked about that for a while and I told him that we had to forgive the teacher or whoever made the mistake because they were doing the best that they could. (I also told him that Jesus had been wrongfully accused too -- and his response from the cross was: "Forgive them for they know not what they do.") Then I said that we had to go on and live in such a way that no one would ever believe any wrong accusation made against us. I told him to just be honest and tell the truth and do what was right and build up a good reputation so people would be quick to believe the best about him. He said, "I do. I do that." He was so sincere and earnest. We all stopped and prayed right then for God to help us all to do that and to be quick to forgive any wrong accusation. It was totally unexpected and a very sweet time.
To get back to the point of our lesson though: we might rarely be accused of doing something we didn't do -- BUT all of us have done things wrong and we all need to be forgiven. Even King David is a sinner who needs a Savior. His failure reminds us that we have a BETTER king than David, one who has never sinned and who could, therefore, die as a perfect sacrifice in our place. All of Scripture points to Christ, who justifies those who put their faith in Him, by paying the punishment (death on a cross) so that our sins are forgiven. But that isn't all He does -- He also credits to us His own perfect righteousness. And then He changes us, little by little, in the process of sanctification, which lasts a lifetime and is never complete until we are with Christ for eternity.
During the year, we have covered many times and in many ways the doctrine of what happened at the cross. Certainly the children won't understand it all, but we're laying the groundwork, we want them to grasp that something concrete and objective was accomplished, (justification - our sins wiped away and Christ's righteousness credited to us) and something else was begun that is incomplete and still going on (sanctification.)
We moved onto a game tied to the "whiter than snow" verse. I layed out a black piece of paper, signifying sin, and then layed white pieces of paper on top to make a blanket of snow overcoming the black. (This is the picture of justification -- while sanctification is not yet complete.) Just for fun, we had a snowball fight, by crumpling up the sheets of paper and tossing them at each other again and again. As we threw the snowballs, Jacob had the Psalm 52 verse in his mind and kept saying, "Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow." This really touched me.
After we were tired, we moved to the table to work on our Attribute Books -- God is forgiving -- and too soon it was time to leave!
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